I despair. As if verything else in life wasn't making me a grumpy old git, I now read that pupils are getting a B grade in maths GCSE when they've only got 17%. That's right, 17%. I've known for a long time that the world is becoming less literate (more illiterate?), but now they won't be able to count either. I sweated and struggled for my C grade O level and probably only just achieved that. But then I was rubbish. Under these rules I'd have got an A. Not that I'd have deserved an A; I deserved a C because that equated to my ability and effort. I understand the need to make children feel as though they are achieving good results, but surely that should be based on actually doing well? Or, as the cynic in me surfaces, is this just a ploy to make the government look good: "under our government children are getting better grades". Sadness now. We've had some pretty hefty storms recently and we've lost one of the greatest icons in British cricket. That's right, the Lime tree on the Canterbury pitch, which had a hart-wood fungus, fell foul of the gales. I've only ever been to the pitch once, although I am a Kent supporter, and that was for a Kent v. South Africa match, their first after the end of apartheid (South Africa, not Kent). I was in a hositality tent just to one side of the tree. Sadly there was drizzle and the pitch was deemed too wet for play. However we drew some stumps on the tree with chalk and proceeded to form a couple of small teams from the children around. It as a jolly afternoon. The good news is that the MCC will allow a new tree to be planted in its place. A new tree is in waiting, but is too small to take the battering it will surely receive. So the next few years see an opportunity for cricketers to score more sixes without the tree there.